


passengers

by s0ph



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Car Accidents, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sort Of, but not graphic, mild depiction of injury, there's also lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-03-01 07:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0ph/pseuds/s0ph
Summary: It was an accident.  A stupid, avoidable accident but now Phil sits in a waiting room in rural South Dakota and watches the clock tick by.





	1. Chapter 1

“Do you want a coffee?” 

Phil jumps slightly and looks up from the grey carpet. No one had spoken in hours. A girl is stood in front of him, two small Styrofoam cups in her hand, one outstretched slightly toward him. The entire left side of her face badly scratched up and the edge of a white bandage is visible on her collarbone. 

“Thanks,” he says quietly, reaching towards the cup. She passes it to him slowly, still staring. 

“You’re British.” She says.

“Yeah.” 

“I thought – I came over here to see if you were drunk or – or something but you’re just …” She trails off, as Phil’s stomach lurches as he suddenly remembers her. 

 

“This thing has no idea where we are.” Phil fiddles with the phone in his lap, tapping the blue navigation arrow as the dark countryside speeds past, every road looking exactly the same. 

“It’s fine,” Dan says, eyes straight ahead, his left hand lazily gripping the steering wheel while his right sits on the back of Phil’s neck. Dan strokes the base of Phil’s head idly, humming a tune that Phil can’t distinguish.

“We’re never going to find the town at this rate, let alone the hotel. We’re going to die in the middle of some random cornfield in America and no one will ever find us.” 

“Will you relax for a second?” Dan turns his head slightly. The warm summer wind from the open sunroof whips through his hair, causing it to stand on end. “There’s no schedule, no plan. We’re just being spontaneous.” 

“Fine,” Phil says, shutting off his phone and dropping it back into the cup holder. “Will you put your other hand on the wheel at least?” 

“Oh, fuck off, I know how to drive,” Dan says, grinning slightly. “Besides, I know you love this.” He strokes Phil’s neck, brushing his long fingers through the freshly cut hair. 

“And look, there’s a sign for the freeway, we’re really close.” Phil half-smiles, closing his eyes and leaning his head into Dan’s grip. There’s a song playing on the radio, something light and jazzy. His mind drifts farther and farther away, until suddenly ––

A horrific crunch. Dan, gripping his neck. The wind, rushing through his hair. Phil’s entire body seizing up and then opening his eyes to find them locked with – 

 

“I was stupid,” Phil says. “So horrifically stupid that I can’t – I’m so sorry,” The words float in the silence of the waiting room. 

“You were the passenger,” she says, almost to herself. 

“You were too,” Phil replies. She nods, and sits down across from him, leaning forward on her knees and staring into her cup. 

“I wanted to be mad – I had this whole speech and everything but now I just feel bad.” 

“You can be mad at me.” 

“No, I’m not – it’s just instinctual now, y’know? If I went to England I would probably turn the wrong way too. And it wasn’t just you, we should’ve been able to stop, we were going way too fast, she’s just a little reckless sometimes and I always tell her that she’s gonna get hurt someday and – “ she cuts off, biting her lip.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I talk too much and I don’t have any capacity to make myself stop right now.” 

“It’s alright,” Phil says, trying to convince himself of this as well. “Is she okay? Your driver.” 

The girl blinks. 

“I don’t know. She’s in surgery right now, I think and I don’t even know if I’m gonna be able to see her after.” 

“Why?” 

“She’s my –“ the girl lowers her voice slightly, “we’re, you know, together and I mean it’s fine where we’re from but this is the middle of South Dakota and –“ She takes a deep, shuddery breath. Something inside Phil loosens slightly. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Phil says, though the words feel hollow in his mouth. “I’m, um, in the same boat -- obviously not from here either,” He adds quickly, without even thinking about it. She looks up at him, and Phil almost hopes that she understands what he really means without having to spell it out any further. 

“I’m Kala,” she says. 

“Phil.”

“Your –“ she says, and then pauses. “Your driver, is he alright?” 

Phil’s stomach turns slightly and he looks down at the coffee, now rippling in his shaky hands. 

“Is he in surgery too?” 

Phil manages to nod. 

Kala takes a long sip of the coffee. Phil does as well. It burns his tongue and tastes of Styrofoam. 

“God, that’s awful,” Kala says. Phil nods. 

She pulls her phone out of her pocket, which has a spiderweb crack through the center. Phil’s fingers brush automatically to the pocket of his own jeans, before remembering that his phone was presumably still –– 

 

“Phil!” 

It’s completely dark. Phil’s head is spinning, spirals of blue and white twirl in front of his eyes and his neck burns, there’s something holding him down. 

“Phil!” 

He needs his glasses, he needs his phone, he needs Dan, something has gone wrong in this horrible dream. Smoke fills his nostrils and he yanks at the seatbelt that’s cutting into his neck, but it doesn’t come loose. 

“Phil!” 

It’s the third yell that snaps him back, and his left hand scrambles to the sound, to come in contact with Dan’s shoulder. 

“I’m right here, I’m right here,” Phil says, blinking away the last of the spirals. Dan’s hand grips onto Phil’s with nearly enough strength to break his finger. 

“Phil it really hurts.” 

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” 

Phil attempts to yank the seatbelt again with his free hand, and then suddenly remembers the buckle. It snaps off and he surges towards Dan, who he can now see an outline of in the dim light. Some part of his mind registers that there are more people around the car now, someone is yelling, it’s all so confusing. 

“I’m stuck,” Dan says, “Phil I’m stuck in here and I can’t get out, Phil please it really really hurts I don’t want to stay here, I don’t want to die here.” 

Phil sees that the side of the car has crumpled, easy as paper, pinning Dan into his seat. Phil leans across the divider, pressing his forehead against Dan’s and closing his eyes, inhaling the smell of smoke and sweat and blood. 

“You’re not gonna die here, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s gonna be fine.” 

His neck throbs and he can hear voices outside, there’s more cars pulling over and more lights and Dan grips his hand so hard that he winces and all he can do is repeated the same feverish whisper of _it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay _.__


	2. Chapter 2

__

__“Did you need to call someone?” Kala asks._ _

__“What?” Phil is snapped out of his train of thought._ _

__“You were looking at my phone, do you want to like, call your mom or something?”_ _

__“I ––“ Phil says, staring at the cracked iphone. “I don’t even know what time it would be there, or the country code, or . . .”_ _

__“I can look that up, if you want?”_ _

__Phil bites his lip and then shakes his head._ _

__“I’ll call her if –– when it’s all okay.”_ _

Kala nods her head too quickly, more of a frantic bounce that extends down into her fingertips in a nervous jitter. Her nails tap against the side of the cup and the phone is set back down on the arm of the chair. She glances back every few moments to the set of double doors, but the lobby remains empty and silent. 

“Do you pray?” she asks, after a moment. 

“No,” Phil says. 

“Me neither.” There’s a pause, in which Phil looks down at his hands. They’re covered in tiny scrapes. How did he not feel that before? 

“It’s weird, I just feel like I should be praying right now.” Kala’s voice cracks slightly. She sets down the coffee cup and exhales through her teeth, a thin, shuddery breath. 

“There’s something my mum always told me to do,” Phil says quietly, still looking down. “When someone’s hurting, sometimes all you can do is picture them in your mind at their happiest. It’s not praying exactly, but …” 

“Positive thoughts,” she finishes, then looks up. “Yeah, okay.” 

She squeezes her eyes shut. Phil does the same. 

“What’s his name?” Kala says after a moment. “Your – I want to picture him too, if that’s not weird.” 

“Dan,” Phil says, and a pang goes through his chest. “Dan and he’s –– he’s tall like me but his hair is different, it’s lighter and curly, and his eyes are brown and he’s got huge dimples when he smiles.” 

“Amy’s a redhead but not ginger,” Kala says. “No freckles but she’s got a birthmark over the back of her neck and she’s always wearing the same hoodie, it’s a green one with a drawing of a tree on it, and she’s got pierced ears and wears two little silver hoops in each side.” 

“Dan’s always well dressed,” Phil says, “and it’s all black and he buys the most ridiculous clothing, like it’s always way to big and full of weird straps and buckles but when he puts it on somehow it doesn’t look stupid. And he spends all our money on shoes, there’s this giant shoe rack in the bedroom and there are only two pairs that are actually mine but about twenty that are his.” 

Some part of Phil’s mind realizes that this is way too far, farther than he would ever tell anyone he doesn’t even know, but the words are spilling out of him faster than he can filter them. 

“I’m the same way about bags,” Kala says, “and she hates it, she’s been carrying around this same gross backpack for three years now, and it’s got this huge hole in one of the pockets so her keys are constantly falling out. It’s gotten to the point where I have to walk half a step behind her to catch all the crap that inevitably spills out of that stupid bag.”

The corner of Phil’s mouth turns up slightly, though that feels inappropriate. 

“The first time me and Dan went out for coffee I was so nervous I dropped my wallet three times while trying to pay,” Phil says. “Dan eventually just took the card out and handed it to the cashier himself.” 

Kala giggles slightly. 

“I was so nervous I thought I was gonna faint. He must’ve thought I was such an idiot.” 

“What would he be doing now, if he was here?” 

Phil blinks open his eyes, startled to find they’re slightly wet. 

“He’d be playing some dumb game on his phone while telling me not to be such a twat about this.” 

“Amy would just be sleeping. She can sleep anywhere, I don’t understand it.”

“Dan sleeps ––“ Phil starts and then his voice catches in his throat. 

 

He looks asleep when they pull him out. At first it’s just arms, strange disembodied hands, blue and white, leaning down into the car. There’s a mask that’s shoved over Dan’s face and then the blue hands begin to cradle the curls of Dan’s hair, which are dark with blood. There’s lights that spin above and below, and the hands begin to grip onto Phil too, on his torso and neck and he turns his head to see the face of a man whose eyebrows are furrowed in concentration.

The door of the car is open now and the wind rustling through the cornfields sounds a strange and haunting rattle. He’s standing outside the car now and the blue handed man is gripping his forearms and the world is tilting and swooning and Dan is asleep on top of an orange surfboard that is being swept away on a black tide.

Somewhere far away he hears screaming and sees a flash of red hair and a crowd of people. The grips on his arms tighten and he beings to shuffle forward but not of his own accord. Dan, where is Dan, he needs Dan.

“They’re taking care of him now,” someone says and Phil blinks to see that there is now a woman on his right, and she is peeling back gloves that are stained in red, too much red and Dan was bleeding, and they have to stop that now, and there was so much blood in his hair and Phil told him that he wasn’t going to die, and he needs to be with Dan everything is so strange and wide and dark and he just wants to be curled up on the sofa under a thick blanket and against Dan’s chest when it is not covered in any blood and just then the world tilts and swoops upside down. 

 

There’s a squeeze on his hand. Kala has moved into the seat next to him and Phil looks down to see her small hand placed on top of his own. The lap of his shorts are covered in little dark spots. 

“It’s okay,” she says, “I’m scared too.” 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Phil says, very quietly. 

“Okay.” Kala repeats. 

“Okay,” Phil agrees. 

 

Just then the double doors swing open, and a surgeon enters the room, pulling off his mask and making a beeline for Kala and Phil. 

“Ms. Patil?” He says, and Kala’s eyes go wide. She nods. “Why don’t you step this way.” 

The surgeon gestures toward the other empty half of the waiting room. Phil squeezes her hand, pushing her arm up until she is standing. She glances back at Phil, who nods at her slightly. Then, walking as if she is almost weightless, Kala floats over to the surgeon and Phil is left with the lukewarm coffee cups and hard-backed chairs.


	3. Chapter 3

Phil watches as Kala’s head drops into her hands. The pair of them are too far away for him to hear, so whether her reaction is from good news or bad he can’t tell. The surgeon stands up, and Kala is whisked towards the set of double doors. She glances back at Phil for a moment, one hand still on her forehead, and gives him a tiny nod. Was it a nod of relief or encouragement? Neither? Both? The door swings closed and once again Phil is alone in the waiting room. 

His eyes drift first toward the clock, but it remains a stubborn blur in his unaided vision, his glasses probably still crushed into the pavement like some sort of bizarre stick insect along the side of some random farmer’s cornfield. 

The sun is coming up now, and Phil can see through the window a blurry outline of a mostly-empty parking lot, and then beyond that the outline of hills, the whole scene washed in faint pink and blue. 

“The painted hills,” Dan says, pointing through the windshield. “They’re supposed to be beautiful during sunrise, they get all red and gold.” 

“Well, shame we’re never going to see it, then.” 

Phil is leaning his head against the door of the car, trying to keep his nose in the steady stream of fresh air coming in through the top of the window. 

“Well, aren’t you a cynic.” 

“I’m just being realistic.” 

Phil closes his eyes, but that seems to make the turning in his stomach worse, so he opens them again. Dan is driving with his left knee propped up and his left elbow bent against it, sunglasses adorning his face. 

“The place we’re staying tonight is supposed to have a great view.” 

“Okay,” Phil says. “If you manage to wake up in time for sunrise, I will come watch the – the colored hills or whatever,” 

“Painted hills.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, I’m holding you to that. Please send a memo to morning Phil telling him not to bite my head off when I wake him up.” 

Phil reaches for the water bottle that’s sitting on the floor of the car and uncorks it, spilling a few drops of lukewarm water onto the top of his shorts as they hit a bumpy patch in the road. 

“He’s very chaotic, I can’t make any promises,” Phil says. 

He takes a gulp of the water and then grimaces. 

“You good?” Dan asks. 

“The water here tastes weird,” Phil says. 

“Probably the lack of all the London pollution mixed in. Smog and whatnot.” 

“Mmm.” 

Dan reaches his right hand over to Phil’s leg, stroking with his thumb. Phil reaches down, closing his hand over Dan’s and squeezing lightly. 

“Want to stop for a bit?” 

“Actually, yeah,” Phil says, dragging his gaze off the red-tinged mountains in the distance and to the side of the road. The shoulder gives way to what looks like miles of scrubland, filled with dry looking grass, red dirt, and thin, meandering wire fences. 

The car slows to a stop along the side of the road and Phil opens the door, tumbling out of the car and stretching his arms, stomach settling gratefully. Dan strides around the side of the car and moves closer to Phil, his arm strays towards Phil’s waist but Phil turns away. 

“C’mon,” Dan says, very softly, “absolutely no one is here.” 

“What’s that?” Phil asks, pointing. 

“What – oh, is that a meerkat?” 

The creature is small and yellow-brown, and has just poked its head out of a mound of dirt about thirty feet away. Phil takes a few steps closer, and Dan pulls his phone out of his pocket. 

“A prairie dog,” Dan says, “and google says they can carry the fucking plague so don’t get any closer.” 

Phil stops in his tracks and glances warily at the small rodent, still reaching its nose into the air. 

“It is cute, though,” Phil says. 

“Here, scoot in, I’ll get a picture, this will be very ––“ 

“Oh my god, if you say ‘on brand’ I will punch you,” Phil says, then scoots to the left so that he and the prairie dog are within frame and then arranges his features into his tried and true excited-slash-surprised open mouth photo face. 

“Great,” Dan mutters leaning down to get the right angle. “Say -- excuse me Mister--.” 

“What?” Phil asks. 

“Excuse me Mr…?” 

Phil blinks. A brown-haired woman is stood in front of him, dressed head to toe in blue scrubs. 

“Phil,” he says 

“Mr. Phil –“ 

“Lester –Mr. – sorry, that is me.” 

The surgeon’s eyebrows furrow slightly, but she takes a seat in the chair that was recently vacated by Kala. 

“You came in with Mr. Howell, yes?” 

Phil nods, hardly daring to look her in the eyes, to try and guess what she’s going to say before she says it. There’s a creeping feeling in his chest, and his eyes stray once more to the hills out the window, glowing blazing red. The woman’s mouth opens and closes but all Phil can hear is a great thundering in his ears, louder than anything he’s heard before. 

She’s standing up now, and beginning to walk back towards the door and Phil is fairly certain she said to follow so he stands up on unsteady legs and his heart is beating so fast he feels like he’s about to faint. 

The surgeon holds the swinging door open and Phil steps into a bright white hallway. It’s mostly empty, a few nurses in purple scrubs stand around a tall desk with cups of coffee identical to the ones Phil just abandoned in the waiting room. The surgeon that he’s following leads him down this hallway, down another one to the right and finally through a door. There’s a light green curtain on the other side, and by the time it’s opened fully, Phil has already crossed the room in three long strides to bury his face in the curls of Dan’s hair. He is shaking, waves of hot and cold passing over him and all he can do is cradle the side of Dan’s head in his hand and close his eyes. 

“Mmmpf,” Dan says, wiggling slightly and half-opening one of his eyes. “Oh, Phil.” 

“You’re okay,” Phil whispers into Dan’s head. 

“Course I am,” Dan says rather blearily, and light pats the back of Phil’s head. 

Phil exhales, half smiling, half crying. 

“Ah fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.” 

“S’all okay,” Dan says, and then closes his eye again. 

Phil brings his head up to see a chair sitting beside the bed, and then scoots it in with his leg, collapsing into the seat without taking his hand off the side of Dan’s head. 

“I am never letting you drive again,” Phil says, stroking Dan’s hair back from his forehead. “Never ever. I don’t care if we have to take an Uber every time we leave the house.” 

Dan grumbles and turns his head, eyes still closed. 

“I’ll tell you again when you’re not so loopy,” Phil says, mostly to himself. 

“Don’ go anywhere,” Dan says, shifting slightly and groaning again. 

“Of course not,” Phil says, “Go back to sleep. I’ll be here the whole time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be at least one more chapter :)


	4. Chapter 4

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Dan is sitting up now, sipping a tiny bottle of orange juice through a straw and looking at Phil with slight trepidation, “You keep looking at me weirdly.” 

“Christ, Dan, I thought you were dead. I thought that I was being led to the fucking morgue to identify your body, that she was gonna tell me that you had bled out or – or were crushed up in the door or --“ 

Dan reaches across the bedspread and grabs Phil’s arm. His hand still has an IV drip trailing out of his knuckle. 

“It’s okay, Phil, I wasn’t ever in real danger, the doctor –“

Phil snorts. 

“Okay, I mean, yeah, my leg’s gonna be busted up for a while and I’ve got some gross new scars but I wasn’t gonna die.”

“Tell that to you last night when the last goddamn time I saw you, you were all but breaking my fingers off and yelling about how you didn’t want to die smashed up in the car.” 

Dan’s eyes widen slightly. 

“I was?” 

“Yeah, do you not remember that?” 

Dan’s eyes stray away from Phil’s for a moment. 

“I remember seeing the sign for the highway … and then I remember turning onto the on ramp –“ 

“Which turned out to be the off-ramp—“ 

“--and then there was some bright lights and then I woke up here. I thought I just, like, fainted.” 

“Lucky you.” 

Dan leans toward Phil, winces slightly and then settles back on the pillow. 

“I’m really sorry. I had no idea.” 

Phil nods and gives Dan a tiny smile. 

“I am still kind of worried, though, I spent some time with one of the girls we hit –“ 

“Wait, we hit someone?” 

“Yeah, I mean, what do you think happened? You went the wrong way on a highway exit.” 

“I don’t know, I just told you I don’t remember anything! God, are they okay?” 

“Well, one of them is but I’m not sure about the other. . .” 

“Oh, fuck,” Dan breaths, removing his hand from Phil’s arm to press it over his eyes, “Oh, god, Phil.” 

“I’m sure they’re okay,” Phil says. 

“You’re just saying that.” 

“I – yeah.” 

There’s a moment of silence between them, punctuated by a nurse pushing back the green curtain. 

“There are some officers who will need to speak to you, Mr. Howell, if you are feeling up for that right now.” 

Dan turns a pale shade of green but nods, setting his jaw. Phil gets up and exits the room, passing by two heavy-set men in blue uniforms standing outside the door and wandering in the direction of the cafeteria. It’s probably the early afternoon by now, and the sunlight is streaming in through the windows, which show a similarly beautiful view of the painted hills and surrounding plains. Phil gets another cup of the horrible, Styrofoam coffee and scans the room for a glimpse of Kala.

However, the only people sitting at the plastic tables are a middle-aged couple and a tired-looking man, so he pulls out a plastic chair and settles down, taking a sip of the coffee and trying to calm his nerves. 

He pulls Dan’s phone out of his pocket, now hardly recognizable with the spider webbing cracks and black spots covering nearly the whole of the giant screen. Squinting, he presses the number to dial his mum, as he said he would call back later in the day when Dan was awake. 

“Yeah, I called her,” he says quickly, answering his mum’s first question, “and I’ve told Dan to ring when he’s feeling better – yeah I mean I talked to the guy at the rental company – the one here, yeah and then they kept redirecting me to different insurance offices – I did talk to Martyn too, you don’t need to – okay, that’s fine, that’s fine. Yeah. Okay. I should go, we don’t have a charger yet and I think this phone is gonna – yeah I’ll get a new one as soon as we leave. A few more days, just until – yeah, okay. Love you. Bye, mum.” 

Phil hangs up the phone and exhales through his teeth, grabbing the coffee and heading back to the room. After answering several questions from one of the officers in the hallway (No, we weren’t drinking, not tired, we drive on the left in the UK, are you sure you can’t tell me anything about the other girl?) Phil walks back through the green curtain to find Dan staring blankly at the wall opposite him as the nurse examines of the many machines surrounding the bed. 

“What did they say?” Phil asks softly. 

“Well, I’m not being arrested so I assume no one died. Yet.” 

Dan’s voice is strangely devoid of emotion. 

“Car insurance is gonna go through the roof, though.” 

“Yeah,” Phil says. “I talked to them a bit this morning, but we’ll probably have to call again when --” 

“Not that it matters, though,” Dan continues, as if Phil had never spoken, “I’m not driving again, that’s for sure.” 

“Well, that’s probably for the best right now.” 

Dan blinks and nods slightly. The nurse finishes recording something on a tablet she’s cradling in the crook of her arm and then leaves the room. 

“I told your mum that you would call when you woke up,” Phil says, “And it’s getting pretty late over there.” 

Dan groans slightly and covers his eyes with his hands. 

“I’m sorry, but I had to –“ Phil says, and then stops. 

“I’m going to go for a walk,” he says. “I’m leaving the phone on the nightstand.” 

Dan stays with his hands over his eyes. 

“Dan, it was a mistake,” Phil says softly, standing up. “It was an understandable mistake. Ka – the girl from the other car, she said that she understood.” 

Dan makes no recognition that he heard Phil, but sometimes that’s just how he is, Phil thinks as he slips past the curtain. 

As soon as Phil’s in the hallway he realizes that he left his coffee on the nightstand along with the phone, but it would be poor taste of him to only give Dan thirty seconds of space before barging in. He has half a mind to go get another, but spending money on the second terrible coffee was bad enough what with the numerous roaming charges he’s sure will show up on the next phone bill. 

Instead he wanders nowhere in particular, and after a few minutes his feet have carried him back into the ER waiting room, and out the set of double doors. 

“America is so hot right now,” Phil says, lying across the top of the white duvet. 

He sits down on the curb on the edge of the parking lot, looking off toward the rolling hills. 

“It’s hot here,” Dan replies, standing up on his knees on the bed to look in the mirror, brushing his fingers through his hair. “I think it would be nice to go, after everything. Take our mind off stuff.” 

“You just want to go on a road trip after reading American Gods.” 

Dan turns backward towards Phil, giving him a dimpled grin. 

“Maybe so, but what’s the use of being rich if we can’t gallivant halfway across the world to fulfill some book-based fantasy?” 

Phil stretches his fingers down across the soft blanket, across the gritty concrete which digs into the cuts in his palms. 

“I think it sounds nice,” Kala says, and Phil watches her enter the room to sink down in the bed beside him and Dan. She swishes her hair out of her face and turns to Phil. 

“Amy and I were going to do that before she died.” 

“Before she what?” Phil asks, and both Kala and Dan point to the far side of the bed. Phil leans his head back into the mattress, and feels it bump against the concrete. He sees Dan crawl past him, barefoot, to peer over the side of the bed. 

“Oh no,” he says, and then his feet dip out of sight. 

“Don’t go down there,” Phil says, sitting up, and Kala stands in front of him, shaking her head. Phil has a terrible feeling in his stomach, there’s something on the other side of the bed that they’re not supposed to see and from behind him he hears Dan gasp. He tries to turn and see him but Kala moves forward, tugging on his shoulder, yanking him back and forth. 

“Phil? Phil?” 

The sun is pounding into the sides of his head. Kala’s face swims above him, framed on either side by whispy white clouds. He sits up, slowly. 

“Are you alright?” 

Kala kneels down, and Phil’s eyes take a few moments to adjust. 

“I – yeah, yeah I think so.” 

“Did you fall over? Should I get the doctor?” 

“No,” Phil says slowly, looking back towards the doors.

“When was the last time you slept?” 

Phil thinks for a moment. The past 24 have stretched to nightmarish proportions. He stands up, brushing the concrete off the back of his pants. His head is still pounding, and he just wants to curl up in the big bed under the moon mirror, if that bed wasn’t currently four thousand miles away.

“A while ago, I guess.” 

He blinks again and Kala’s face comes more into focus. She looks concerned, and has a grey tattered backpack thrown over her shoulder. 

“I – Amy, how is she?” Phil asks, and the strange panic from his short yet vivid dream sneaks back into his chest, and in his mind he sees the dream Kala standing before him and her eyes are filled with tears and he knows that it’s Dan’s fault which makes it also his fault but the real Kala brushes a lock of hair behind her ear and smiles. 

“She’s doing really well, she’s gonna be fine.” 

All Phil can do is nod and smile. 

“She is kind of shaken up, obviously, she has a concussion and there was something else – something with her stomach I think but it’s not permanent. I was just on my way to grab the rest of her stuff from the hotel.” 

She gestures to the edge of the parking lot, where Phil can see a black car with a white smudge in the back window that must be the Uber logo. 

“That’s great, that’s really great.” 

“Yeah,” she said, and then the smile drops off her face suddenly. “And … Dan, was it? Is he …?” 

“He’s okay, too,” Phil says quickly. “They said we can leave here in the next few days.” 

“I’m really glad.” 

“I – I just want to apologize again. For everything.” 

Kala nods. 

“Thank you. But I think we have to apologize too – the cops told us that the car was going about 40mph over the speed limit.” 

“It was just kind of a disaster all around.” 

Kala nods.

“Well, from one passenger to another – I’m just glad everyone is alright. And that’s all I really care about right now.” 

“Yeah, me too.” 

“I should get the Uber now.” 

“Yeah, yeah – I’ll see you around here? Maybe?” 

“Maybe,” Kala says, then reaches over and squeezes Phil’s shoulder. Phil watches as she walks the length of the parking lot and enters the car, then turns around and traces the path back to Dan’s room. 

He pauses outside the curtain, and hears Dan speaking softly to someone over the phone. After a moment he pushes back the curtain, and sees Dan leaning back against the pillow, cradling the iphone against the side of his face. His eyes flick towards Phil as he enters, and he raises two fingers in greeting. Phil slides back into the bedside chair, and without a phone of his own to occupy him, resorts to trying to find weird shapes in the speckled floor tiles until Dan hangs up the phone. 

“Hey,” Dan says softly, after placing the phone back on the table. Just looking at his face sends a pang through Phil’s chest, his face is pale and gaunt-looking, and dark circles appear stamped under his eyes. 

“Hi,” Phil whispers, and he moves his fingers to lightly brush under Dan’s chin. Dan tilts into the touch, closing his eyes and exhaling through his nose. 

“The other girl is okay,” Phil says, still keeping the soft voice, “She’s gonna be just fine.” 

Dan nods, and then abruptly squeezes his eyes shut. Phil leans toward him, burying his head in the crook of Dan’s neck and reaching his left hand across his collar to grip his opposing shoulder. Dan’s hand snakes up to grab Phil’s wrist, and they stay like that for a while, Phil moving up and down with every inhale and exhale of Dan’s, and Phil gently stroking Dan’s shoulder to the beat of his own heart. 

“I just want to go home,” Dan whispers. 

“Me too,” Phil says. “Soon, we’re going really soon.” 

“I love you,” Dan says, so quietly that Phil can barely hear it, even with his ear basically pressed against Dan’s mouth. “I love you and I’m really sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Phil says. “I love you too. It’s going to be okay, okay?” 

“Okay,” Dan says, and after a few minutes his breathing has slowed enough that Phil raises his head to see Dan sleeping lightly, mouth open, fingers still curled around Phil’s wrist. Phil reaches up and brushes back Dan’s hair again, then adjusts his legs in the chair, lays his head in the crook of his elbow, and lets his mind tumble down into dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> find me at moonanonymous.tumblr.com !


End file.
